DOVER — The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new regulations that would require dozens of New Hampshire communities to pay for stormwater treatment and monitoring programs.

The EPA on Tuesday released a new draft of stormwater regulations that will affect 60 New Hampshire communities. Meeting the requirements spelled out in the permits would cost municipalities, on average, between $78,000 and $829,000 per year over the length of the time the permits are in effect, according to the EPA.

The permits would require communities to develop stormwater management programs designed to control pollutants to the “maximum extent practicable.” They would also “protect water quality” and “satisfy appropriate requirements of the federal Clean Water Act,” the EPA said in a statement.

Local officials were still digesting the news Tuesday. Dover City Manager Michael Joyal said he had yet to review the EPA’s draft “Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System” (MS4) permit, but he anticipated the regulations would impose a burden on local taxpayers.

“There are some significant concerns about the ability and affordability of communities to be able to comply with these requirements ...” Joyal said. “The devil will be in the details of what the communities are asked to do and how quickly communities are asked to make those improvements and changes.”

Dover recently studied the prospect of establishing a new stormwater utility to pay for upgrades necessary to meet the EPA’s stormwater regulations. The idea failed to pass muster with the Dover City Council, Joyal said.

“There is a lot here to digest,” Dover Sen. David Watters said after reviewing a portion of the new permit Tuesday. He added: “I do think that this suggests potentially expensive and difficult requirements that would have to be met in terms of treatment of runoff and new developments and so on.”

Durham Town Administrator Todd Selig said one thing is for certain: the EPA is laying the groundwork for tighter regulations. Selig said communities will likely be required to implement a water testing system to measure the level of pollution being discharged from stormwater outfall points. The EPA will also require communities to upgrade infrastructure, such as catch basins, he said.

“The new permit will force communities to have a very diligent cleaning program in place, a maintenance program in place, to make sure that a catch basin is routinely cleaned on a set schedule to make sure it keeps working properly,” Selig said.

The 60 municipalities in New Hampshire that will be affected by the new permits are located in areas defined by the government as “urbanized,” based on the 2010 census. The list includes a slate of local communities, including Dover, Durham, Rochester, Portsmouth, Newmarket and Exeter. Also on the list are state and federal facilities, such as universities, military bases and the New Hampshire Department of Transportation.

Communities affected by the new permits were notified that the new regulations were in the pipeline. EPA previously released draft permits for places designated as “small MS4s” in 2008, but the permits never went into effect.

After being revised over the course of the last five years, a new draft was released by the EPA on Tuesday. It was tailored to reflect input from public comments, new census data and new plans for the maximum pollution levels that will be allowed in specific bodies of water, according to the EPA.

Among the modifications are a longer timeline for compliance and less stringent requirements for cleaning catch basins and sweeping streets. Provisions have also been added to “address nitrogen in Great Bay,” according to the EPA’s statement.

At a minimum, communities that receive the permits must comply with six EPA requirements. They include starting a public education program and soliciting public participation. Communities would also be required to search for “illicit discharge,” manage run-off from construction sites and redevelopment projects and implement “good housekeeping in municipal operations,” according to the EPA.

For Durham, complying with the new stormwater permits might be less troublesome than for other communities. The town is already developing a water management plan that includes measures aimed at treating both stormwater and wastewater, according to Selig.

The EPA’s proposal around stormwater regulations comes at a time when many local communities are already dealing with tough new standards for wastewater treatment plants. Complying with the EPA regulations is expected to cost millions in Dover, Rochester, Newmarket and other Great Bay-area communities.

“The towns and cities in the Seacoast have known for years that the MS4 stormwater requirements were coming,” Selig said. “And in many respects, the Great Bay communities that have been dealing with nitrogen issues within the estuary have been waiting for several years for the other shoe to drop, and that other shoe is the MS4 stormwater permits.”

The EPA is accepting comments on the draft general permit for stormwater runoff through April 15, 2013. A public hearing on the matter will take place on March 14 at the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Field Office at Pease International Tradeport. The session will run from 2-5 p.m.

The following New Hampshire communities will be affected by the EPA’s new stormwater management standards: